A variety of belt fasteners are currently employed to fasten belt ends together. The system disclosed herein may be used in the joining of various and diverse belt fasteners to a belt, and lends itself to utilization with plate-type belt fasteners as well as hinged-type belt fasteners. Hence, the present invention is not to be construed as limited to the illustrated and described embodiment of the invention wherein the belt fastener is a hinged type of fastener.
A typical plate-type belt fastener is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,141,346, and other belt fasteners, such as hinged-type belt fasteners, are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,742,557 and 3,176,358. In both kinds of belt fasteners, upper and lower portions thereof are secured to the top and bottom surfaces of a belt by rivets. The belt fasteners are secured tightly to, and generally flush against, the respective top and bottom sides of the conveyor belt by a plurality of rivets which project through apertures in the belt fastener and are driven through the belt and flared against the belt fasteners to maintain them in tight engagement with the belt.
A number of belt fasteners are secured along the widths of the free ends of the belt to be joined, with each of the numerous belt fasteners having a plurality of apertures into which rivets are received and secured. Hence, in securing belt ends together, a large quantity of rivets must be inserted in an upright position into each of the plurality of belt fastener apertures prior to driving and flaring of the rivets. Usually, a large hammer or mallet is used to drive simultaneously a group of rivets into a single belt fastener. For example, five rivets may be inserted into a rivet guide block which is positioned over the top of a single belt fastener which will be secured to the belt end by these five rivets.
The process of picking up the rivets individually, reorienting them to their proper orientation, and inserting them into each of the plurality of apertures in a guide block for each of the numerous belt fasteners requires a considerable expenditure of time. There is a need for means for reducing the time required to insert a plurality of rivets into the guide block and the belt fastener apertures.
Conventionally, a bucket is filled with a quantity of loose rivets, with the pile of loose rivets being oriented in various directions. The operator reaches into the bucket to grab an individual rivet, removes the rivet from the bucket, orients the rivet in its proper position, and then inserts the rivet into a belt fastener aperture. Since several rivets are employed for each belt fastener and several belt fasteners are employed for each belt end connection, considerable time is thus spent grabbing each individual rivet, properly reorienting each individual rivet, and then inserting each rivet individually into one of the belt fastener apertures.
Furthermore, where the rivets are in the form of a rivet assembly including a combined piercing nail detachably connected to a separable rivet portion, the nails have a sharp pointed end. Since the pile of rivets in the bucket are in a randomly disoriented heap, operators may prick their fingers on the sharp, leading ends of some of the nails which may be oriented upside down in the bucket. Thus, in practice, operators tend to reach cautiously into the bucket to remove the rivets individually, which further slows down the rivet insertion process.
There is a need for a rivet holder which is inexpensive to manufacture so that the rivet holder may be disposed of following insertion and release of the rivets. Hence, by not having to be concerned w picking up a rivet holder following its separation from the rivets, one rivet holder after another, with their groups of rivets supported therein in proper orientation, may be picked up in rapid succession, the rivets inserted as a group into rivet receiving apertures, and the rivets then released.
To minimize costs, and to minimize the operator time associated with the rivet inserting operations, the rivet holder should lend itself to automated assembly. Assembled rivet holders with their respective groups of rivets supported therein can then be loaded into a bucket to allow a handful of the rivets to be removed from the bucket in groups for group insertion and release into appropriate rivet receiving apertures.